


out of time

by aideyn



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dark fic, Drabble, Ficlet, Gen, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Short, Talon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-13 16:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9131488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aideyn/pseuds/aideyn
Summary: A collection of Talon-centric ficlets/drabbles.She couldn't fight anymore. [Out of Time]They used to dance like this all the time. [La Vie En Rose]





	1. Out of Time

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea and its too sad, so I’m not going to write it all out-- the world is full of too much Tragic Gay stories, but this idea has been biting at the back of my head for a few weeks. So I’m just going to put out what’s been stuck in my head, so I can move on to my happier ideas. Super short drabble.

She had so many regrets. 

So many things left undone. 

But the anger and energy that had kept her fighting was gone.

This time when the door opened, she didn’t have a plan, didn’t think of escape. She didn’t have anything but the near hysterical relief of being able to feel the concrete beneath her scuffed and stinging palms. 

Besides, if she fought, they’d just take it away again.

Calmly, she laid down, her cheek pressed to the floor. It was too cold, just like the smell of blood was too strong, and the sound of clanking was too loud. Everything was overwhelming. 

How long had she been gone this time…

She didn’t have to wait long, whether this was a visit to pick her apart, or a visit to pull her apart, it always started the same. 

A inorganic voice recited the date and time. She’d only lost a month this time.

But she didn’t react to it. If she reacted to it they would take it away again.

If she fought the person who brought it, if she reacted to the date, if she didn’t follow instructions when they were spoken, the quiet masked Talon operative would roll her accelerator out of the room.

If they had been planning to pick her apart mentally, it would mean they would switch to pulling her apart physically. It had cost her pride and eleven months of her life in a incorporeal haze for all the times she fought before. She couldn’t fight anymore. She couldn’t trust herself with time anymore, nothing felt real.

The past year had felt like seven. 

The filtered voice of the Talon agent started boring into her mind. Every other time she had tuned the voice out, reciting the truth like a mantra in her mind. Time and time again for as long as she’d been held prisoner, she had tore at the mold they were trying to cast over her with their lies. So many times she couldn’t count them all.

But this time she didn’t have the energy too. 

So she sat and listened. Her internal protests nothing more than a soft murmur of disagreement.

Only this time– she promised herself. She’d resume reciting the truth next time he came. But for now– she just needed rest.

 

\----–

 

“Progress report.”

“Oxton is coming along nicely. Due to the nature of her condition we have been able to speed up the process by reciting incorrect dates at the beginning of each round of the programming.”

“Good, and the other?”

“Lacroix is ready for Overwatch’s rescue mission.”

“Will Oxton be finished in time?”

“Thanks to the acceleration of her programming, she should be ready weeks ahead of the scheduled rescue mission as well.”

“Excellent.”

 

 


	2. La Vie En Rose

His arms were wrapped, so gently, around her waist as they swayed back and forth. Impressions of light passed over her eyelids as they slowly spun on the tiles of their kitchen floor. Their slippered feet avoided the other’s with practiced ease. There was no sign that this was the first time they had done this in several months.

And yet…

She’d been home for two weeks, but this-- this actually felt like _home_.

Her arms tightened around his shoulders and neck. But the past few months didn’t matter right now. Because this felt right. Like this, alone and safe, bundled in a cozy robe, she could pretend that everything was as it had always been before.

Before her husband’s work had been waiting for her in a dark corner of their old home.

Gérard’s head moved from where it had been resting against hers, moving his mouth next to her ear as the soft guitar strings of her favorite song started drifting out from the speaker on the counter.

 _“Hold me close and hold me fast,"_  

Amélie’s mouth quirked at the corner, but she didn’t interrupt him. As much as she would tease him about his singing, his voice was very soothing to listen to.

_“This magic spell you cast,”_

His voice provided a lovely harmony with the woman vocalist’s as he continued to sing softly directly into her ear. Deftly tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear as he did so. She stifled a soft laugh at the sensation of warmth running from her ear down her neck.

 _“This is_ la vie en rose _.”_

The impressions of light across her closed lids disappeared like someone had turned off the kitchen light.

  
  
  


_“Give your heart and soul to me and life will always be,  
_ _La Vie En Rose.”_

When she opened her eyes, she was standing alone in the kitchen as the last notes of their song faded into silence. The song that normally followed never began and the subsequent silence of the room was oppressive.

Her fingers tightened around the gun in her left hand.

G----d had insisted she learned to handle a pistol. Had begged her to come to the practice range with him. She had taken to it faster than he had expected. A fact that had made him look torn between relief and heartbreak.

Who? Who had done that?

Her slippers squelched wetly with every step she took on the kitchen tile.

She lifted the phone from the charging cradle and dialed a number she didn’t know.

That done, she stood still at the kitchen counter. She was to wait at the door… but despite that-- despite knowing that she _needed_ to stand by the door to wait, she didn’t want to turn around.

The silence, the sudden chill of the room, they were overwhelming. Her grip tightened on the gun again as her arms began to shake. What was she doing? What had she done?

The metallic smell was so strong...

With the hand that held the pistol, she reached out and turned the stereo back on. She almost knocked it off the counter with her shaking, but she managed to restart the previous song.

The familiar guitar strings floated from the well worn speakers again. She trembled, and with her free hand she touched her own cheek, drawing back wet fingertips.

She closed her eyes, inhaling shuddering breaths as the woman began to sing. Her voice sounding incomplete and imperfect. 

“ _Hold me close and hold me fast,_  
_This magic spell you cast,  
__This is_ la vie en rose _._ ”

Amélie never opened her eyes again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still been having angsty-writing feels, so have a Widowmaker chapter.  
> The song is "La Vie En Rose" by Daniela Andrade.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of me just wondered what a Talon-Agent Tracer would look like/go through. but this is too sad-- so this is all I can bare. Hopefully now I can think of where to go next for LtaM with this out of my system--, or at least write something happy.


End file.
